Strasbourg, 7 July 2010 – The Council of Europe’s
Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) today published its
Third Round Evaluation Report on Greece, in which it criticises
its criminal legislation as being excessively complex and finds
that the transparency of the funding of political parties and
election campaigns needs to be improved.

The report focuses on two distinct themes: criminalisation of corruption
and transparency of party funding, and addresses 27 recommendations to
Greece. GRECO will assess the implementation of these recommendations in
2012.

GRECO finds a number of shortcomings in the provisions on bribery of
domestic, foreign and international judges, arbitrators, jurors and members
of public assemblies, as well as procedural obstacles to an effective fight
against corruption. GRECO recommends, for example, abolishing the special
shorter limitation period for prosecuting corruption offences committed by
members and former members of government and removing the possibility to
postpone or suspend prosecution of ‘political acts’ and ‘offences through
which international relations of the State may be disturbed’.

Concerning transparency of party funding (link to the report), GRECO
acknowledges that Greece has a fairly comprehensive framework on the funding
of political parties. However, it concludes that more transparency in this
area is needed, in particular by ensuring a more accurate recording of
financial activities during election campaigns. GRECO recommends abolishing
the possibility of using anonymous coupons for donations, introducing a
requirement that all donations above a certain value are made by bank
transfer and ensuring that information on the financing of political parties
and election campaigns be published in a timely manner.

Above all, GRECO criticises the inefficient and opaque supervision of the
funding of political parties and election campaigns, which may have
contributed to the general mistrust in the system of political financing. As
a matter of priority, GRECO recommends improving the supervision in this
field, by strengthening the independence of the Control Committee
responsible for this task, ensuring more substantial and ongoing monitoring,
and reinforcing control over the financing of local and regional elections.

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The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) is a monitoring body
established by the Council of Europe in order to improve the capacity of
countries to prevent and combat corruption. It includes all the Council of
Europe member states – with the exception of San Marino – and the United
States of America.